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拍品专文
As is the case with all the prized pieces of art, the movement of every grain, every texture, is defined by the innate spirit and energy of the work to faithfully and naturally demonstrate the kinetic energy of the form. This is the focus of 'actualising the exterior with the soul’ to vocalise the pulse of life. A successful piece of art is never accomplished through the haphazard assemblage of loose bits: it is alive with its own defining character, instinctual, and one-of-a-kind. This is the spirit of natural. – Ju Ming
Ju Ming's Taichi Series, his tour de force between 1980's and 1990's that earned him international acclaim, was the most iconic creation of his artistic career, and a consummate archetype of spiritual aesthetic traditions in dimensionalised Eastern art. Taichi Series: Single Whip (Lot 25), executed in 1999 as a large-size, ironwork or art, embodies Ju's quest for exploring the myriad of possibilities that mark the dynamism of space and forms inherent in Taichi, conflating the abstractly-geometric silhouette of the block surface, and the kinetic balance of this classic martial art practice.
Ju Ming began his career as a woodcarver in traditional Taiwanese wood sculpting. His apprenticeship instilled in him a strong tie to the land, and skills that worked in his fa vor as he discovered his niche during the 1970's in creating vivid, kungfu-inspired sculptures, with remarkably concise forms, yet breathtaking kinetic construction and dynamic application. At the advice of his mentor, Yang Ying-feng, Ju took up Taichi for its health benefits, and incorporated the practice into his artistic pursuits to coalesce the philosophical principles of Confucianism into modern sculptural presentations. The result is the Taichi Series, a collection that is quintessentially an aesthetic return to nature, a faithful reflection of life.
The term Taichi was first seen in the Chinese classic text of Zhuangzi, 'The Way…came before Taichi, the great ultimate, lies above Liuji, the zenith, but is not high; it lies beneath the nadir but is not deep. It is prior to heaven and earth, but is not ancient; it is senior to high antiquity, but it is not old.' This discourse explains the being of 'the Way' in the existence, transitions and transformations of all things in the universe. The focal point of Taichi Chuan, the Chinese martial art, adheres to this philosophical school of thought accordingly and encourages meeting brute force with softness, counteracting motion with stillness. In terms of artistic execution, the Taichi Series pursues more than just 'the form' of the practice; rather, it espouses 'the spirit and energy' of the application to epitomise the balance between movement and stillness, hollowness and substance with accurate, yet innovatively artistic expression; and 'Single Whip' beautifully conceptualises one of the most classic movements (fig. 1, fig.2).
This celebrated series experienced a transition around 1980: on one hand, the form that stylised Ju's wood sculptures grew more minimalist and streamlined; on the other hand, Ju began experimenting on cast bronze sculptures with wooden molds, evolving his art from the familiar woodcarving to bronze sculpting, and finetuning the artistic principles and expressive lexicon of the medium in the process. A decade later, Ju began intensifying the spiritual representation of the art that culminated in the crystallisation of his modern sculptural vision. Among which, ironwork was a rare choice of medium in this collection; what is more noteworthy is that Taichi Series: Single Whip is naturally aged with a patina of dark rust, the rough tarnish of weathering traced with the passage of time, the starkly shallow and deep cuts of blade on the block surface pulsing with abstract rhythm; its dimensionalised structure evocative of the textured surfaces of Georges Braque's paintings, heavy with Cubism influences.
Celebrated curator Zhang Song-ren praised Ju Ming's Taichi Series 'for mirroring the motion of a microcosm in the grand scheme of nature, as it fuses into the rhythm of the cosmos to acknowledge the law of the universe.' Single Whip is noted for its solid sense of weight and force, and yet smooth-flowing kinetic energy, calling to mind the counterbalance between front and back, top and bottom, the law of order being internalised. The work is mesmerising from different viewing angles, as the cadence of dynamism in the sculpture is encapsulated in an interplay between ying and yang, beckoning the viewer to follow its lead. The body and the garment of the figure are streamlined in a way that the work appears to be executed with a single, smooth stroke; the natural ebullience of the sculpture goes beyond the definitive form, capturing the verve and force with uncanny precision. Henry Moore sought to deconstruct the human form to get to the essence of esprit (fig. 4); compared with Moore's deconstructive abstractionist renditions, Ju's aesthetic pursuit is enabled by his belief in the form and spirit, encapsulating the momentum of the figure in one timeless shot, waiting ever-patiently for the finale of the surge in force.
Taichi Series: Single Whip featured in this sale was exhibited in "Sculptures in the Garden City" of 2004, co-hosted by Juming Museum, National Gallery Singapore, and iPRECIATION. It was positioned strategically with other works of art throughout the museum premises and the city to encourage close-ups and interaction with the viewer; the exhibition also conceptualised the spatial aesthetic that underpinned the dialogue between sculptures and the environs by Ju Ming when he created this collection.
Ju Ming's Taichi Series, his tour de force between 1980's and 1990's that earned him international acclaim, was the most iconic creation of his artistic career, and a consummate archetype of spiritual aesthetic traditions in dimensionalised Eastern art. Taichi Series: Single Whip (Lot 25), executed in 1999 as a large-size, ironwork or art, embodies Ju's quest for exploring the myriad of possibilities that mark the dynamism of space and forms inherent in Taichi, conflating the abstractly-geometric silhouette of the block surface, and the kinetic balance of this classic martial art practice.
Ju Ming began his career as a woodcarver in traditional Taiwanese wood sculpting. His apprenticeship instilled in him a strong tie to the land, and skills that worked in his fa vor as he discovered his niche during the 1970's in creating vivid, kungfu-inspired sculptures, with remarkably concise forms, yet breathtaking kinetic construction and dynamic application. At the advice of his mentor, Yang Ying-feng, Ju took up Taichi for its health benefits, and incorporated the practice into his artistic pursuits to coalesce the philosophical principles of Confucianism into modern sculptural presentations. The result is the Taichi Series, a collection that is quintessentially an aesthetic return to nature, a faithful reflection of life.
The term Taichi was first seen in the Chinese classic text of Zhuangzi, 'The Way…came before Taichi, the great ultimate, lies above Liuji, the zenith, but is not high; it lies beneath the nadir but is not deep. It is prior to heaven and earth, but is not ancient; it is senior to high antiquity, but it is not old.' This discourse explains the being of 'the Way' in the existence, transitions and transformations of all things in the universe. The focal point of Taichi Chuan, the Chinese martial art, adheres to this philosophical school of thought accordingly and encourages meeting brute force with softness, counteracting motion with stillness. In terms of artistic execution, the Taichi Series pursues more than just 'the form' of the practice; rather, it espouses 'the spirit and energy' of the application to epitomise the balance between movement and stillness, hollowness and substance with accurate, yet innovatively artistic expression; and 'Single Whip' beautifully conceptualises one of the most classic movements (fig. 1, fig.2).
This celebrated series experienced a transition around 1980: on one hand, the form that stylised Ju's wood sculptures grew more minimalist and streamlined; on the other hand, Ju began experimenting on cast bronze sculptures with wooden molds, evolving his art from the familiar woodcarving to bronze sculpting, and finetuning the artistic principles and expressive lexicon of the medium in the process. A decade later, Ju began intensifying the spiritual representation of the art that culminated in the crystallisation of his modern sculptural vision. Among which, ironwork was a rare choice of medium in this collection; what is more noteworthy is that Taichi Series: Single Whip is naturally aged with a patina of dark rust, the rough tarnish of weathering traced with the passage of time, the starkly shallow and deep cuts of blade on the block surface pulsing with abstract rhythm; its dimensionalised structure evocative of the textured surfaces of Georges Braque's paintings, heavy with Cubism influences.
Celebrated curator Zhang Song-ren praised Ju Ming's Taichi Series 'for mirroring the motion of a microcosm in the grand scheme of nature, as it fuses into the rhythm of the cosmos to acknowledge the law of the universe.' Single Whip is noted for its solid sense of weight and force, and yet smooth-flowing kinetic energy, calling to mind the counterbalance between front and back, top and bottom, the law of order being internalised. The work is mesmerising from different viewing angles, as the cadence of dynamism in the sculpture is encapsulated in an interplay between ying and yang, beckoning the viewer to follow its lead. The body and the garment of the figure are streamlined in a way that the work appears to be executed with a single, smooth stroke; the natural ebullience of the sculpture goes beyond the definitive form, capturing the verve and force with uncanny precision. Henry Moore sought to deconstruct the human form to get to the essence of esprit (fig. 4); compared with Moore's deconstructive abstractionist renditions, Ju's aesthetic pursuit is enabled by his belief in the form and spirit, encapsulating the momentum of the figure in one timeless shot, waiting ever-patiently for the finale of the surge in force.
Taichi Series: Single Whip featured in this sale was exhibited in "Sculptures in the Garden City" of 2004, co-hosted by Juming Museum, National Gallery Singapore, and iPRECIATION. It was positioned strategically with other works of art throughout the museum premises and the city to encourage close-ups and interaction with the viewer; the exhibition also conceptualised the spatial aesthetic that underpinned the dialogue between sculptures and the environs by Ju Ming when he created this collection.